BICYCLE TRAFFIC

Francisco DaumThese young bikers are setting a good example by wearing helmets.

Happy Thursday, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill! Today’s weather forecast is promising — we’ll have a rainy morning in the neighborhood, but the skies will clear in the afternoon and will stay that way for several days.

In local news, F + S Tire Shop — one of the oldest businesses on Fulton Street — has been shut down by the city. Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Patch reported that the problems stemmed from multiple building violations. In a press statement, Council Member Letitia James said that she will help the shop’s owners fight for their business to reopen. “These Haitian immigrants have outlasted the dark days of drug dealers and crime in this neighborhood. They arrived before the recent renaissance, which began during the 90′s, and they continued to thrive. Now, F + S Tire is struggling for survival amid specialty food shops, real estate offices and boutiques. The shop is located in the heart of prime real estate, and property is in high demand,” said Ms. James. A hearing for the shop’s violations is scheduled for May 16.

F + S Tire Shop is not the only neighborhood institution to face a shut down by the city. The Department of Education will close the Khalil Gibran International Academy — the Navy Street Arabic language and culture middle school, The Brooklyn Paper reports. The article claims that the closure is due to the school’s failure to attract students.

To follow up on this week’s press coverage of Atlantic Yards, The New York Post ran an article detailing the Barclays Center’s sure 2012 completion despite recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Their source? Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said he spoke with Bruce Ratner on the phone. Mayor Bloomberg said that Mr. Ratner believes business is going well, and that he remains optimistic that area is on track to open next year.

Both StreetsBlog and The Wall Street Journal ran posts about bike parking outside the soon-to-be Barclays Center. There will be a total of 400 spaces where bicyclists can leave their wheels.

We recommend that bicyclists travel safely to the Barclays Center once it opens. NBC New York and The Brooklyn Paper reported a steep increase in the number of traffic tickets issued to bicyclists in Brooklyn last year. A total of 695 tickets were written up by officers in February of 2011, compared to 375 at the same time last year. Critics say there hasn’t been enough outreach or accident statistics to enforce bicycle traffic rules. What do you think, readers?

The city Department of Transportation’s controversial Citi Bike bike-sharing program, which put 600 bike racks on the streets of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, has residents up in arms. But kiosks are not coming down, New York City Council Member Letitia James told more than 100 neighborhood residents at a raucous town hall meeting last night.

Get news about Fort Greene and Clinton Hill in our daily roundup, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s summer slate of youth-oriented programs and the third annual Art of Brooklyn Film Festival coming to St. Joseph’s College in Clinton Hill.

In today’s daily post, you’ll find news on the spring opening of the Fort Greene Artisan Market, a Pratt Institute student artwork display at a Gagosian Gallery in Manhattan and a new recording studio in the nabe.

In this crime report, locals told police that their belongings were stolen from cars and trucks, their homes were burglarized and their bank accounts were used in unauthorized ways. Also, disputes between significant others resulted in violence and robberies last week. The trend of robberies on the B38 bus continued last week, with another incident on May 4 marking the tenth such robbery in the precinct this year so far.

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The Local provides news, information, entertainment and informed conversation about the things that matter to you, your neighbors and your family, from bloggers and citizens who live, work and create in your community. It is run by students and faculty of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, in collaboration with The New York Times, which provides supervision to assure that the blog remains impartial, reporting-based, thorough and rooted in Times standards.